May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here. -- Ronald Reagan

Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Thoughts and Observations of the Past Year, Macro Big Picture and Personally Looking Forward



Some observations about the past year. Understanding that this day is an arbitrary mark in time, it is nice to have a traditional place to stop, review, take stock, and think about what we need to accomplish in the next twelvemonth. Looking back on the past year, it was not good, macro or micro [my personal world].

I’ve put my personal life observations/experiences at the end. I think much more important are the things at the national and international level causing pain and destruction to millions of lives, which to me is pretty much the meme of the past year.

At the macro level, we must start with our President, whose personal agenda has replaced the traditional role of the office. He has been and is a force of destruction socially, politically and economically.  The first year Obama took office the Bush deficit was about $840 Billion which Obama said was irresponsible and unpatriotic. The national debt as of this past Dec was $18 Trillion. That is up $7.4 Trillion since Obama took office. Six years and a little over a $Trillion a year added.

When Obama and his political party lost the midterm elections in a landslide, from local to state to federal offices and legislatures, he response was, “To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you too.”  We see stupid. That those who didn’t vote, he assumes they would have voted for him and his Party’s failed policies and totalitarian mindset. Some numbers on that election. Republicans gained nine seats in the Senate, and picked up seats in the House they already controlled. That House thing is the largest majority since 1946. [BTW, that was a repudiation of the Democrats and FDR then. Not put in history books is the FDR and Dems were seriously disliked by more than half the country then; this country was as divided as much as it is now. One of the best-selling books then was a repudiation and revealing of what really went on during the FDR years; all the hypocrisy, lying, corruption and illegality.  The Roosevelt Myth by John T Flynn.] Republicans will hold 31 of 50 governorships, and hold both house and senate in 24 states. Republicans are not so much liked or trusted either, but there ya go. Says much about Obama and the Democrat party and how they are perceived.

Epic failures. ObamaCare became the law of the land in October 2013. A billion dollar website crashed and no one could use it. It's still rotten.

The Veterans Administration falsified data that caused extreme suffering for some vets and their families and killed other vets through negligence.

Word went out to countries south of the border that the border was open to children. Tens of thousands of unchaperoned kids flooded the border causing a humanitarian crises. Hundreds of the “kids” were gang members. I remember reading at the time leaked memos that this invasion was planned by the Administration months in advance.  

The IRS targeted conservative groups to silence any effective campaigns for the 2012 elections. There were emails that proved this, that were “lost” but recently found. A lying corrupt federal Leftist “judge” recently ruled there was no law broken and there was no foul play since the targeted groups were eventually granted their tax requests, and the investigations that stopped their activity have been ended, and the emails were found. Even though the emails proved illegal activity, they are to be ignored by court order. I guess now getting away with breaking the law is okay according to Leftists as long at not caught at the time.

A major health threat to this country was created when Obama and his Departments of Health, and Homeland Security, allowed people into the country with the deadly disease, Ebola. Some of those refused to be guaranteed citing their civil rights were being violated by being asked to remove themselves from the general population. Put hundreds if not thousands at risk of probable death for personal feelings and comfort. The Obama and his administration changed rules all over the place to cover up their incompetence.

Obama and his political party claimed Al Qaeda on the run, the war in the Middle East over, war on terror pretty much done. Syria had used chemical weapons, Obama said this was unacceptable, and drew a “red line”. He erased it when it came time to take action on it. He pulled troops out of the Middle East against the advice of his generals, leaving a vacuum that is filled by ISIS, now slaughtering thousands, and conquering land. The murder of Christians by them is pretty much ignored by Obama; his disdain for them is only exceeded by his disdain of Jews.

Putin re-lit the Cold War by taking over Crimea and threatened to conquer Ukraine. Obama did not come out and support either country, offer weapons or military tactics/training.  Putin uses oil and gas energy as a political weapon, both of which we have an abundance of and could have sent to undermine Putin and cool Russia's heals.

Obama has aggressively attacked Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu personally. Two senior administration officials (names not given to the reporter for the Atlantic) called Netanyahu a “chickenshit”. If anyone has any knowledge of the man, that’s one thing he’s not. Obama has tried to block, or spoken out against everything Israel has done to protect itself from terrorist countries and organizations. Obama and the Dems support in word and deed ($’s) Hamas, Iran, ISIS, PLO, and initially the dictator of Syria that slaughtered thousands.

This is nothing less that the anti-Semitism of Obama and the Democrat Party. (Remember at the Democrat convention they removed God and support of Israel from the Party Platform until political backlash force them to put those back in.) That Party and Leftist anti-Semitism is fueling the reemergence of it here in the US, and it's getting more and more prevalent especially on college campuses. This is supportive of the dangerously increasing anti-Semitism in Europe, where Synagogues are being burnt down and Jews are being attacked and murdered. Coming soon to a town near you?

Economically about 92 million people are out of work. Not reported in the administration’s labor statistics because they are no longer counted since their unemployment ran out. People on Food Stamps are highest that any time in the history of the program. Bush 2 was excoriated in the Jurassic Press when unemployment got over 5%.  Now the “official” unemployment rate is 6% or 7%, and since the “new norm” at the beginning of Obama’s reign was 10%, this is now a good thing. Actual unemployment is between 13% and 17%. Hard to tell since Labor Statistics are controlled by the White House. I noticed that the month and weeks before the presidential and midterm elections, the unemployment rate dropped a couple percent and after those elections the Bureau of Labor statistics revised them back up. 

Racism, along with anti-Semitism is hugely on the rise. Whenever a Black man confronts the police and gets killed for his efforts there are riots. Racist Attorney General and his racist boss gin up the Black population to hate whites especially before elections as a get out the vote tactic. The Leftist New York Post found this out during the Ferguson riots. An accidental act of journalism. Still ignored are the hundreds of Black on Black murders, or Black on White murders, or the murder of police by Blacks.

I’ve gone on enough about this, thinking the point made. This has been a terrible year for this country, and the head of the fish that stinks is Obama and the Democrat Party. Anything done to protect America’s borders stopped, anything to decrease unemployment stopped, to produce lower cost energy stopped (anti fracking, anti-oil exploration, stopped Keystone pipeline, drove away offshore drilling) [there’s a vid of him before his run for president that he wanted to drive up the cost of energy, it was necessary].

Yet I keep going on about the macro stuff. It’s endless the badness that’s happened in the past year. I don’t see it improving much in this new year even with Republicans winning such a landslide election. They badmouth, push to the margins Conservatives, the base, campaign against them harder than they do against the Democrats. They are both incompetent and proving themselves they earn and keep earning the moniker ‘the party of stupid’.

Now the personal. I know I have friends that read my postings, and I thank you for your interest and support. At the micro level, my personal life, I have much less to say. Work is okay, with the usual corporate hassles, but it does provide, and I am able provide service through them, to customer service agents and the customers of UPS. With that I missed a lot of work due to illness, more of an affliction, vertigo. I’m amazed how many amateur doctors and healers there are with advice how to deal with it, get rid of it. Specialists, my GP and neurologist unable to do anything but help me maintain, but many still have better health advice.

I had stopped attending my church for a while. Got caught up in church politics, was personally attacked and was shown less than appreciation for my contributions. There’s enough aggravation in life, I don’t need it where I worship. After a couple/three months breather, I went back and the love shown let me know this is the right place for corporate worship. I had given a sermon on worship, and the theme was the unbroken connection between corporate and personal worship.  That was born out with my noting my diminished prayer time and study of faith and religion. Worship, corporate and personal, is the centerpiece of my life, and informs how I live.  {If interested, my last sermon, "Road to Emmaus" can be seen at fcclv.com>Webcast>and scroll down to sermons 6 months ago.}

Looking back at this year, which has been seriously ungood; the goals are to get back to reading and studying more, writing more, praying more. I’ve read less this year, and watched more vids. Mostly due to it really being hard to read when the vertigo and other illnesses I have make the Kindle move around, and/or nausea make the concentration necessary for reading, or writing, pretty much impossible. The books and movies I’ve read and seen are on the right of this blog. Noticeably fewer than years past, just as there are way fewer posts to this blog than years past. I don’t list the vids I watch, but the most entertaining for me this year were the series “Justified” (my fav) and “Longmire” and “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”.  Lots of British produced mysteries with great stories and acting.  

I pray all a healthy happy holy coming year. We pray God to start working to remove, through each of us, all the bigotry, hatred, lies, deceit and violence that has marked this past year, and for us personally to stay in a worshipful spirit and state of mind to effect in a loving and positive way, those around us. It all starts with each of us, and our communion with God. He must be what informs every aspect of our lives. 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Thoughts on the First Day of the Year, What We Should Focus On This Year

 A new year begins. Some make resolutions, which are often nothing more than a wish list for wanting to indulge in what is thought of as beneficial behavior. Bottom line is we should always eat healthy, do the best we can at work, treat people right and all the rest as a matter of life style every year. We should strive to do all things better every day. Maybe instead we should look back at the past year, and see what we fell short on, and work to improve those.

My personal life was good last year; only made one bad decision I can think of, and paying a bit of an emotional price right now. My church has spent the last year healing from some bad things that happened the year before. Prayer and good leadership is bringing us about and getting us back on track as far as we treat each other. All our programs this past year that feed the poor, missionary work, outreach and the rest were still taken care of, with a lot of success. That's Love, Hope, Charity at work.

Expanding further, I can only hope some more people come to their senses to refute the bad things happening in politics and culture. Kids being suspended from school for using their thumb and index finger to form a pistol. A five or six year old kid gets suspended for sexual harassment for kissing the hand of his "girlfriend".  Homosexual sex is being taught to elementary school kids, and the heterosexual family is being diminished and diss'd because it's homophobic or something.

The war on men, emasculating them. Pay attention to commercials and it's the male that is always the stupid one, and a child or woman corrects him. Actually in this country (and world wide)  masculine men, traditional family, Christianity, personal responsibility and all the rest are under attack. The State will replace all that has worked throughout civilization. Congress critters and other politicians and their paymasters know better than us how to live our lives. We can see what the destruction of the family, by secularists and atheists, have brought. Lower college entrance exam scores, increased high school dropouts (and monstrously ignorant and stupid "students"), higher out of wedlock births with attendant teen pregnancies, higher rates of violence and juvenile delinquent activity, higher STD rates to name a few things rotting the base of our civilization.

Another note on politicians and their paymasters. They advocate that massive debt to the tune of $trillions is a good thing. We have two or three coming generations being born into debt. There may be times when debt is unavoidable, but having it as a lifestyle or as an economic policy is nothing less that disastrous. The Bible teaches economic policy. Just read the account of Joseph and the principles he applied to get Egypt out of economic disaster. 

The "elites" are no more than bullies, and if you don't "get it" and conform to their notions, they will destroy you. Bakeries and photographers shut down; they tried and shut down Chick-fil-a and Hobby Lobby and several businesses. That would have thrown hundreds out of work if they were successful at closing down those larger companies. It's not enough that one has different values and belief system than the "elites", but you must be destroyed. So much for tolerance. They're still trying and destroy Sarah Palin, advocating shitting and pissing in her mouth, or mocking Mitt Romney's family for adopting a black baby. BTW, let's drop "African American"; it was the sole concoction of racist and race hustler Jesse Jackson. An intolerant hate monger if there ever was one.

Ultimately, Christians need to stand up, be forceful, and advocate for manly virtues, the virtues of heterosexual marriage, good education and the rest. May I be so bold to say we need to educate Leftists, Secularists, Atheists, about what sin is. When I saw the attack on "Duck Dynasty" personality Roberts for his using the term "sin" to describe certain behaviors, we Christians needed to stand up and say what "sin" is. Sins are those things that distance us from God. There are things that work. Happily in this case, there was enough of a backlash to make things right. Roberts got his job back, but more on freedom of speech than on the deeper issue of working to diminish or remove sin from our lives.

I said in my previous post that scripture, Old and New Testaments, are the best guides for living. Here's what scripture says about the family.

"...God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons." (Sirach 3:2). We have pretty much rejected this.

"Wives, be subordinate to your husbands,  as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives,  and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything,  for this is pleasing to the Lord." (Col 3:19-21) This is a seriously misunderstood verse about women; it doesn't mean what secularists and atheists that are the elites and bullies say it does. Sadly many Christians don't understand either. I guess this is another blog that needs to be written.

"Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another… put on love,  that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts…And be thankful." (Col 3:12-15) This has been replaced by cohabitation and divorce...those are not a solution to relationship problems.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God." (Col 3:16) The rules and guides for living found in scripture, a record of things that have worked for thousands of years are rejected and replaced by Elitists that live in the meme, in the moment advocating the materialist values of their anti-Semitic, anti-Christian world view. It doesn't work. It has a 100% failure rate 100% of the time. The things that work bring us closer to God. Reject the natural order of God, the rules and behaviors that work and we get the mess mentioned above.  

When we talk about sin, we know what Leftists, Secularist, Atheists  are rejecting what works, and the  result of that thinking destroys family, faith, hope, charity, liberty. It's destructive and demeaning, mean and intolerant. They think that taking out notions of sin and tradition and replacing it with laws and rules, forcing behavior through those, rather than providing wisdom and guidance for a sinless heart and loving behavior as the best way. No. Fails every time. Some powerful men rejecting the natural order of things with their own laws and rules will always lead to the morass we live in now. Parents and children must find a church so all can communicate with all generations, give and get guidance and wisdom. A counterculture that only benefits. 


As the new year begins this day, Jews and Christians must be more vocal, and push back against the intolerant elitists, bullies and liars that are destroying civilization while saying they are saving it.


Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Year Wishes

New Year's Greetings!
May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastro-endocrinologist, your urologist, your proctologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist, your gynecologist, your plumber and the IRS.
May your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs and your stocks not fall; and may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your cholesterol, your white blood count and your mortgage interest not rise.
May you find a way to travel from anywhere to anywhere in the rush hour in less than an hour, and when you get there may you find a parking space.
May. . . evening, December 31, find you seated around the dinner table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends, ushering in the new year ahead. You will find the food better, the environment quieter, the cost much cheaper, and the pleasure much more fulfilling than anything else you might ordinarily do that night.
May you wake up on January 1st, finding that the world has not come to an end, the lights work, the water faucets flow, and the sky has not fallen.
May you ponder how did this ultramodern civilization of ours manage to get itself traumatized by a possible slip of a blip on a chip made out of sand.
May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them.
May someone love you enough to forgive your faults, be blind to your blemishes, and tell the world about your virtues.
May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner, and may your check book and your budget balance and may they include generous amounts for charity.
May you remember to say "I love you" at least once a day to your spouse, your child, your parents, your friends; but not to your secretary, your nurse, your masseuse, your hairdresser or your tennis instructor.
May we live as God intended, in a world at peace and the awareness of His love in every sunset, every flower's unfolding petals, every baby's smile, every lover's kiss, and every wonderful, astonishing, miraculous beat of our heart. -Author Unknown